Bishop Hill Climate cuttings 5
Jul 13, 2007 Climate: Cuttings Welcome to the latest Climate Cuttings, in which I round up interesting stories on the Global Warming front.
First up was the Lockwood paper which purported to end Svensmark's arguments that the main driver of climate change is cosmic rays. Certainly the press were keen to echo Lockwood's statement that this ended the argument. Commenters at Climate Audit wondered about why Prof Lockwood used a long filter when dealing with a short-term effect, why he used the notoriously unreliable surface temperature record, and whether he was looking in the wrong place. I think we'll have to wait for a response from Svensmark himself for enlightenment here.
The Armstrong paper which claims that the IPCC couldn't forecast the arrival of next Christmas, let alone the climate next century, continues to get a lot of attention. IPCC lead author Kevin Trenberth attempts a rebuttal at Nature Climate Feedback. His argument seems to be that the IPCC deals in scenarios, not forecasts and so Armstrong's points don't apply. We might characterise this as the "I did not have sex with that woman" argument.
Eske Willerslev, described in Science how he and his team had used recovered DNA to show that the Greenland ice sheet was forested in the past, but that the ice sheet made it through the last interglacial when temperatures were up to 5oC higher than today, the implication being that we may not be doomed after all. Real Climate responded with a piece analysing the press releases which followed the paper's publication.
The latest evidence that global warming causes both madness and unemployment was found in a story from worsethanfailure.com. Man switches off office air conditioning to save the planet. Writes pompous letter to colleagues to tell them what he has done. Discovers on Monday morning that he has destroyed the office IT infrastructure. Takes early retirement.
Inspired by the example of Al Gore, Oxford University decides to go into the global warming movie business.
Retiring boss of the British Antarctic Survey, Chris Rapley is interviewed in the THES. He raises once again Monbiot's idea of Nuremburg-style trials for skeptics. Nice.
And lastly, inspired no doubt by the success of these Climate Cuttings posts (readers in the hundreds, you know) Real Climate has started its own weekly round up of climate stories.
Reader Comments (6)
And they accuse sceptics of torturing data.
Trenberth is causing more damange to the IPCC than several hundred sceptics ever could. His statements on scenarios is just laughable. In essensce he's saying that if the IPCC made predictions, they would have to be, well, accurate. But since the IPCC only provides scenarios, no such acuracy is needed. But rest assured that you can rely on the IPCC for accurate scenarios.
Makes the mind boggle.
interesting round-up. did you see that TGGWS came to town here in Oz last week?
http://pommygranate.blogspot.com/2007/07/great-global-warming-swindle.html
the ABC (the govt run equivalent of the BBC) ran the show but insisted on a panel discussion afterwards whereby they could state that 'this does not reflect the opinion of the ABC'
they, err, didnt do the same for An Incinvenient Truth - but who said govt broadcasters are biased!
However the reaction in the press was surprising - of the Big 3, 2 were sceptical and only one was passionately Green. The Age (our equivalent of the Guardian) was highly sceptical. Encouraging.
Finding substitutes for fossil fuels may well be a good thing, but the financial pressure put on developing countries and consumers (especially lower incomes ones) via higher energy prices is an outrage. The poor are once again to pay for the 'development' of the rich....
Overheard in Vatican, apparently from Pope Benedikt: we should remember that we NOW know that the little ice age was not caused by witches. (Wise women were burnt for causing famine etc brought about by too much snow and cold...)